Unit 5: Word Processing

After completing this unit, you should be able to:

• Describe how computers can make the writing process more efficient, more effective, and more fun
• Describe how a modern word processor can be used to create, edit, format, and print a document
• Explain how to use a computer to proofread your work and how to recognize the limitations of proofreading software
• Describe how other kinds of software can help you organize your ideas and improve your writing
• Explain how desktop publishing relates to word processing and how it relates to traditional publishing
• Discuss the potential impact of desktop publishing on the concept of the free press
• Speculate about future developments in word processing and publishing software and hardware

Mark Twain Goes for Broke

Mark Twain was the first author in history to submit a typewritten manuscript: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain later invested almost $200,000 (the equivalent of $1.5 million today) in the promising new Paige typesetting technology, convinced that it would transform publishing. Instead, Twain went bankrupt.

Linotypes dominated the industry until the 1960s, when electronic typesetting with mainframe computers took over. Now mainframe publishing systems are rapidly being displaced by personal computers.

Working with any word processor involves several steps:

• Entering text
• Editing text
• Formatting the document
• Proofreading the document
• Saving the document on disk
• Printing the document

Entering Text

Because memory is not a permanent storage medium, it's important to regularly save your work&endash;that is, make a disk file containing your work in progress.

A flashing cursor (sometimes called an insertion bar) indicates your location in the document.

Because of a feature called word wrap, the word processor automatically transports any words that won't fit on the current line to the next line along with the cursor.

As you type, the topmost lines scroll out of view to make room on the screen for the new ones.

Editing Text

If you're working with a modern WYSIWYG (short for what you see is what you get, and pronounced "wizzy-wig") word processor, the arrangement of the words on the screen represents a close approximation of the arrangement of words on the printed page.

With a word processor you can easily

• navigate to different parts of the document by scrolling or by using a Find command to locate a particular word or phrase
• insert text at any point in the document 
• delete text from any part of the document
• move text from one part of the document to another section of the same document or to another document
• copy text from one part of a document and duplicate it in another section of the document or in a different document
• search and replace selected words or phrases throughout a document

Cut-and-paste editing is possible in virtually all WYSIWYG word processors. You select text to be edited using the mouse or the keyboard. The selected text from the document is placed on the Clipboard&endash;a special portion of memory for temporarily holding information for later use.

To speed up the process of moving text within a document, many word processors include a drag-and-drop feature that allows you to simply drag (with the mouse) selected text to another part of the document.

The Replace command performs a search-and-replace operation, changing any or all of the target words to a different word.

The Undo command allows you to take back the last operation you performed.

Formatting Text

Text formatting commands allow you to control the format and style of the document.

Formatting Characters:

The format of the characters that you print is determined largely by your printer. Most modern printers can print text in a variety of point sizes, typefaces, and styles that aren't possible with typewriters.

Characters are traditionally measured by Point size, with one point equal to .72 inch.

In the language of typesetters, a font is a size and style of typeface. 

Serif fonts are embellished with serifs&endash;fine lines at the ends of the main strokes of each character.

Sans serif fonts, like those in the Helvetica family, have plainer, cleaner lines.

Proportionally spaced fonts allow more room for wide characters like w's than for narrow characters like i's.

Formatting Lines and Paragraphs:

Justification refers to the alignment of text on a line. Four justification choices are commonly available: left justification (with a smooth left margin and ragged right margin), right justification, full justification (both margins are smooth), and centered justification.

Formatting the Document:

Headers and footers are blocks that appear at the top and bottom of every page, displaying repetitive information like chapter titles, author names, and automatically calculated page numbers.

Rules of Thumb: Word Processing Is Not Typing

Here's a short list of new word processing habits to replace outmoded typing habits:

• Use the Return/Enter key only when you must.
• Use tabs and margin guides, not the spacebar, to align columns. 
• Don't underline. Use italics and boldface for emphasis. Italicize book and journal titles.
• Use only one space after a period.
• Take advantage of special characters. Bullet (•), em dash (&endash;), curly quotes ('~"), and other nontypewriter characters make your work look more professional, and they don't cost a thing.

A typical high-end word processor might include a built-in outliner, spelling checker, thesaurus, and indexer. But even word processors that don't include those features can be enhanced with stand-alone programs specifically designed to accomplish the same things.

Outliners and Idea Processors:

Idea processors take a variety of forms, but most are built around the concept of outlining. Most outliners are particularly effective at performing three functions:

• Arranging information into levels, so that each heading can be fleshed out with more detailed subheads, which can then be broken into smaller pieces
• Rearranging ideas and levels so that subideas are automatically moved with their parent ideas
• Hiding and revealing levels of detail as needed, so that you can examine the forest, the trees, or an individual leaf of your project

Synonym Finders:

An on-line thesaurus puts synonyms at your fingertips.

Digital References:

Writers rely on a number of other reference books, including dictionaries, quotation books, encyclopedias, atlases, and almanacs. Most of these traditionally printed resources are now available in computer-readable form, too. The biggest advantage of the electronic form is speed; searching for subjects or words by computer is usually faster than thumbing through a book.

Many CD-ROM references take advantage of the massive disk capacity by including sounds, animation, video, and other forms of information that aren't possible in books. Multimedia references are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. 

Spelling Checkers

Most spelling checkers offer several choices for each suspect word:

• Replace the word with the suggested alternative.
• Replace the word with another alternative typed by the user.
• Leave the word alone (used when the word is spelled correctly, but it's not in the dictionary because it's an obscure word, a specialized term, or a proper name).
• Leave the word alone and add it to the dictionary so that it won't be flagged next time (used when the word is spelled correctly, it's not in the dictionary, and it's a regular part of the user's written vocabulary).

The most common spelling checkers are batch spelling checkers; they check all of the words in your document in a batch when you issue the appropriate command.

Some people prefer interactive spelling checkers that check every word as it's typed, beeping or flashing each time a word is typed incorrectly.

When you're using a spelling checker, it's important to keep two potential problems in mind:

• Dictionary limitations and errors
• Errors of context

Grammar and Style Checkers:

Many errors that would slip by a spelling checker would be detected by a grammar and style checker. In addition to checking spelling, grammar and style checking software analyzes each word in context, checking for errors of context, common grammatical errors, and stylistic foibles. In addition to pointing out possible errors and suggesting improvements, it can analyze prose complexity using measurements.

Form Letter Generators:

Most word processors today have mail merge capabilities for producing personalized form letters. When used with a database containing a list of names and addresses, a word processor can quickly generate individually addressed letters and mailing labels. The uses and abuses of this kind of technology are discussed in Chapter 8.

Just as word processing changed the writer's craft in the 1970s, the world of publishing was radically transformed in the 1980s with the introduction of desktop publishing.

 

What Is Desktop Publishing?

The process of producing a book, magazine, or other publication includes several steps:

• Writing text
• Editing text
• Producing drawings, photographs, and other graphics to accompany the text
• Designing a basic format for the publication
• Typesetting text
• Arranging text and graphics on pages
• Typesetting and printing pages
• Binding pages into a finished publication

Businesses rely on desktop publishing technology to produce in-house newsletters, brochures, advertising materials, training manuals, periodicals, and books.

With modern desktop publishing (DTP) technology, the bulk of the publishing process can be accomplished with tools that are small, affordable, and easy to use. A desktop publishing system generally includes a computer with a graphical user interface, desktop publishing software, and a laser printer or other high-resolution printer.

Desktop publishers generally use standard word processors and graphics programs to produce most source documents. Scanners are used to transform photos and hand-drawn images into computer-readable documents. Page-layout software is used to combine the various source documents into a coherent, visually appealing publication.

You start the page-layout process by designing master pages that control the general layout and include common elements for all left- and right-facing pages.

Many desktop publishers who need typeset-quality output prefer to rely on outside service bureaus to print their final camera-ready pages&endash;ready to be photographed and printed.

Desktop publishing tools provide graphic designers with control over virtually every element of the design, right down to the spacing between each pair of letters (kerning) and the spacing between lines of text (leading).

For users without background in the elements of layout and design, most desktop publishing packages include templates&endash;professionally designed "empty" documents that can easily be adapted to specific user needs.

Rules of Thumb: Beyond DESKTOP TACKY!

While there's no substitute for a good education in the principles of design, it's easy to avoid tacky-looking documents if you follow a few simple guidelines:

• Plan before you publish.
• Use appropriate fonts.
• Don't go style-crazy.
• Look at your document through your readers' eyes.
• Learn from the masters.
• Know the limitations of the technology.
• Remember the message.

Why Desktop Publishing?

The reasons desktop publishing has enjoyed such wide acceptance by businesses are:

• Desktop publishing saves money.
• Desktop publishing saves time.
• Desktop publishing can reduce the quantity of publication errors.

Desktop publishing technology offers new hope for every individual's right to publish. The number of small presses and alternative, low-circulation periodicals is steadily increasing as publishing costs go down. If, as A. J. Liebling suggested, freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one, that precious freedom is now accessible to more people than ever before.

The End of Desktop Publishing Software?:

As word processors grow in sophistication, they absorb more and more of the features formerly available only in page-layout software. Of course, desktop publishing software is growing in sophistication, too, incorporating features essential to discriminating professionals.

Groupware for Writing and Editing:

Modern computer networks make it possible for many people to work together on the same set of computer documents using groupware&endash;software designed to be used by work groups rather than individuals.

Electronic Dictation

Speech-recognition software systems are now available at an affordable price (under $100 up to $1000 depending on features). Because of large memory requirements they require a pentium processor PC with 64 megabytes of memory. Thousands of speech recognition systems are sold every day. They are useful to persons who are blind or who cannot use their hands. Doctors, lawyers, and others who dictate their notes may find that they no longer need to pay a transcriptionist. Word processors that can reliably recognize human speech are almost certainly in your future. See Chapter 12 for more details.

Intelligent Word Processors

Some possible kinds of electronic writing consultants that might appear in a few years are:

• Your word processor reminds you (via a pop-up message on the screen or an auditory message) that you've used the same word several times and suggests that you choose an alternative from the list shown on the screen.
• Your word processor continuously analyzes your style as you type, determines your writing habits and patterns, and learns from its analysis. If your writing tends to be technical and formal, the software modifies its thesaurus, dictionary, and other tools so they're more appropriate for that style.
• You're writing a manual for a large organization whose documentation has specific style guidelines. Your word processor modifies your writing as you type so that it conforms to the organizational style.
• You need some current figures to support your argument on the depletion of the ozone layer. You issue a command, and the computer does a quick search of the literature in a library database and reports back to you a few seconds later with several relevant facts.

automatic footnoting, automatic hyphenation, camera-ready, clipboard. copying text, cursor, cut and paste

deleting text, desktop publishing (DTP), drag-and-drop, Find command, font, footer

grammar and style checker, groupware, header, idea processor, inserting text, insertion bar

justification, mail merge, master pages, moving text, navigating, outlining

page-layout software, point size, proportionally spaced font, sans serif font

saving a document, scrolling, search and replace, selecting text, serif font, service bureau

source document, spelling checker (batch or interactive), style sheet, template

text editing, text formatting, thesaurus, typeface, Undo command, word wrap, WYSIWYG

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